Drug Addiction Stories

I grew up being in the shadow of others. I was Donny’s sister, David’s daughter, Margaret’s daughter, Lisa’s friend. I was never just Tory. I was second to everyone else. I came up with a great idea for our history paper when Lisa and I were in junior high. Even as Lisa stood there and told our teacher the idea was mine, she applauded Lisa for “allowing” me to share the credit. 

In high school, Lisa was out sick for a week with the flu and I was invited by another girl, Stacy, to go to a party. ME. Not Lisa, not Donny, me. So I went. It was there that I became acquainted with a new world. It was there I met crystal meth.

When Lisa came back to school, she noticed the change in me immediately. I was dressing “goth” she said. I told her she was just jealous. She warned me to keep away from my new friends. I told her she was being spiteful because they wanted to be friends with ME.

As the days went by, I got more involved with crystal meth and my new friends. One Tuesday afternoon, I got home about an hour late from school to find my family, Lisa and a lady there. They told me they cared about me. Not because I was just a sister, just a daughter, just a friend, but because I was Tory. They said they missed me. They called it an intervention.

The lady told me she was a counselor and that it was not too late to get off crystal meth. She said I had a wonderful family and best friend who did not wait until I was hurt or in jail to get help. It had only been about six weeks. They were not going to take chances with me. As soon as they confirmed I was involved with drugs, they sought help.

Lisa was one of the speakers at our high school graduation two years later. She had been on the honor roll all four years. She told the audience she would not have maintained her high grades if not for the creative and inspirational ideas of one person, her best friend, Tory. She looked over at me and everyone stood up giving both of us a standing ovation. My parents were beaming from ear to ear even though I had not won any awards.

I am Donny’s sister, David’s daughter, Margaret’s daughter and Lisa’s best friends. My name is Tory and I am the luckiest girl on earth.

In the very back of my closet hangs a wedding dress. I picked it out seven years ago when my boyfriend proposed to me. We had gone together all through high school and college and planned to be married one year after finding good jobs. We had a plan for our lives and nothing was going to stop it. 

Something did.

We graduated from high school and college with honors. David got a job right away at the accounting firm he had interned with and I was hired as a nurse at our local hospital. I started out in the emergency room.

We picked a wedding date that coincided with vacation time from our careers and planned the perfect wedding. I had found the dress of my dreams and it hung in my closet with a promise from David not to see it until the day I walked down the aisle to him.

One night I was getting ready to get off when a three-car pile up was called in with multiple injuries. When that happens during shift change it is mandatory for all available staff to stay on. Rumor was coming in that one of the drivers was drinking and had crossed the center line, hitting another car and calling a serious accident. As victims came in, we got them into triage and worked steadfastly.

There were four children in a minivan involved as well. Children always have the hearts of hospital staff but we have to work diligently and concentrate on helping them immediately so it does not always show. Miraculously, they all made it. We were told that the car between the drunk driver and the minivan had taken the brunt of the hit.

Another team was working on that driver. As I walked out of the room where the last of the children had been checked over thoroughly, I heard a doctor stating the time of death. I looked over and screamed. It was my David!

David had been driving home from dinner at his parents’ house when the drunk driver, a man who had stopped in at happy hour four hours earlier, took it upon himself to drink and drive. The only person killed in an accident that involved eight people, David, the drunk driver and the family of six in the minivan, was my fiance.

That was seven years ago. Instead of a wedding, we had a funeral. Sometimes the pain is so great that I think about just forgetting myself in a bottle of pills or whiskey but that seems almost like it would be a sign of disrespect to David’s memory. So each year, on Valentine’s, his birthday, the anniversary of his death and what would have been the anniversary of our wedding, I go to his grave. I tell him in my heart he is a hero because he took the impact and four children are alive today.

I don’t date and I get that dress out from time to time and try it on. I know David sees me in it from where he is. If I could have anything, it would be for David to be here. He isn’t so I can only ask this. If you are reading this, please, PLEASE, I am begging you. Do not drink and drive. It isn’t always just your life you ruin.

Whenever I see a young woman acting a little off, I think back to Marci. I was in college and she was in the dorm across from me. Every time I went out to grab a smoke, she was there. She was watching me from her window. 

Marci was beautiful. I admit, I was into her. However, Marci had a bipolar disorder and when she drank at parties, it was even worse. As beautiful as she was, I could not see her for very long. After just a few weeks, it was getting well, sort of creepy.

I met her at a party one Friday night. We ended up hanging out all weekend together. She was beautiful and honestly, I could have found myself falling in love with her if given the chance. But her mood swings became apparent in just a couple of weeks. Her watching me seemed almost, well, as my mom said, like a stalking situation.

One night, Marci called me. I started not to answer but something made me. Her voice was slurred and I thought she was drunk. She was but there was something more going on. I could sense it. Marci mumbled something about her brother dying. She said she had no family left now and she wanted to die, too. She had taken all of her bipolar medication, a half bottle of sleep sedative and was on her fourth drink. She wanted to die.

I raced over but her dorm was locked. I called 911 while my roommate called Campus security. The paramedics got there and tried to revive her but they were too late. Her neighbor in the dorm said Marci had been notified earlier in the afternoon that her brother had died in a car accident. Marci did not have a roommate because she was hard to live with according to the girls in her dorm.

I think about Marci from time to time. She was so beautiful and had everything to live for. She was in college and wanted to be a journalist. She was always writing in a spiral. She could have gone places.

I was studying psychology and became more and more interested in bipolar disorder after Marci’s death. I did some research and saw that people with bipolar disorder who have a drug or alcohol problem have more episodes than those who don’t. Today I am a mental health counselor. When I see a patient with bipolar disorder, my mind goes back to Marci. When I see one with a drug or alcohol problem, I make sure they are part of a dual diagnosis program. Maybe, just maybe, if someone had done that for Marci, she would still be alive.  I feel like every time I help a patient, I’m doing it for Marci, too.